Canada 3-0; Scotland, USA and Russia now 3-1 at Ford World Women’s

Surprising Russia, with 19-year-old Anna Sidorova skipping, Scotland’s Eve Muirhead and Erika Brown’s U.S. team from Madison, Wis., each logged their third victories at the Ford World women’s curling championship Monday morning.

The Russians upended hot-and-cold Denmark 10-4, Scotland hauled out the complete arsenal en route to an 11-2 blitzing of Japan and the U.S. scored four in the final end to otherwise edge Germany 12-8.

In the latter tilt, German skipped Andrea Schoepp attempted a last-rock bury for the win but the rock was vulnerable beside a U.S. stone and Brown simply erased both rocks and counted not only her shooter but three obscure secondary counters in the outer rings.

“It was a pretty big target,” said Brown. “A good way to end something of an adventure.”

The Yanks posted a third-end four-spot, then gave back the four in the sixth. Germany played a relentless come-from-behind game until the final exchange.

“We were a little down after yesterday’s loss (to Latvia),” said Brown. “But we decided to put that behind us and get right back it. I think we can use this win as a springboard to some good things.”

Idle Canada leads the field with a 3-and-0 record and faces rookie Latvia (1-3) in Draw Seven this afternoon.

In one other morning tiff, defending champion China shook off a three-game losing streak and walloped Latvia 8-2. The Scots opened with three against Japan and continued to bombard Moe Meguro’s troops with a steady barrage.

“Once again we played the technical shots really well,” said the 19-year-old Muirhead. “We really got on top of them early and we had good stone placement. We’re playing the way we know we can play. We’re just playing shots, basically.”

The Russians won their third in a row with a young skip who directed her teehead traffic in women’s play at the Olympic Games in Vancouver. On the heels of an opening three, the Moscow team doubled the lead in the third after a blank second with a stolen three-ender.

“We are curling better than before,” said Sidorova, who started this tournament as the Russian skip in place of relative veteran Liudmila Privivkova. “Now we’re at our best. We’re gaining confidence. We know we can play and we know we can win.”

In other Draw Seven play at 1:30 p.m. CT, Russia plays Switzerland (0-3), Sweden (2-1) goes against Japan (1-3) and the U.S. faces Norway (1-2).